


A Production In Ruling

by missema



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anger, Arguing, Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Politics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 03:23:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2333465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missema/pseuds/missema
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anora is Queen of Ferelden, and after the Blight she's doing all she can to bring her country back together.  Her father left her a problematic legacy and her husband left her the sole ruler of a divided and desperate country, and she's doing all she can to make it right.  Bann Teagan sees the devastation left behind by the Blight every time he rides through the bannorn on his motorcycle to Denerim.  In Denerim, all he can see is Queen Anora's lethargic progress in helping the rest of her country recover.  They should come together, but past wounds don't heal swiftly.</p><p>Written for the Dragon Age Reverse Big Bang</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Production In Ruling

**Author's Note:**

> This story is based on a mix by Cherith. Thanks for making such an evocative mix and encouraging my AU addiction.
> 
> Thanks to my beta, r0lf, and the DARBB mods.

Story based on [Dust and Ashes](Dust%20and%20Ashes), a mix by Cherith

 

Grief has no sound

Cailan had been much to many people - king, son, husband, nephew - but Teagan wasn't sure which he mourned more. He misses his nephew, of course, because no one wants to watch a person grow from youth to adult only to mourn their too soon passing. But it was long ago that the flaxen-haired boy with the wide smile had grown into a young man who embraced his future as King.

He would miss the impressive figure of a king that Cailan had worn so well, because Teagan had no idea how he had managed it. One moment he would just be Cailan, flirtatious and smiling, but mostly indistinguishable from any other handsome young nobleman. Then like turning on a light in an empty house, he would transform into the King of Ferelden, morphing into his kingly persona. His whole body would change and Teagan didn't know how he did it - it was as if he held something in him back until it was required.

Teagan knew that the whole of the nation grieved with him for Cailan's loss, but it didn't seem to be enough. It felt too personal to him, and no amount of tears from his tailor and his wife would make them understand his pain. It was as if it almost couldn't be shared because it was too overwhelming.

But they still had to go on. At least Anora seemed to be bearing up admirably, though she'd lost more than a king and husband when all was said and done. Once a hero, her father had died in disgrace, though Teagan could find no sympathy in his heart from the man that had ordered the poisoning of his brother Eamon. He could feel for Anora, but she seemed to neither want nor tolerate his pity.

It was a shame they couldn't be closer, but they'd played on opposite sides during a great deal of the turmoil, and come out as something less than enemies and not at all close to what they'd been before. But then again, what did he know? When he wasn't trying to shore up the loose ends of the entire arling of Redcliffe, he was alone, phone turned off, disconnected from the computer he hated to use and the servants he sent away, isolating himself. In his solitude he found himself searching for a sense of self that seemed to have slipped away along with the order and peace and the life of his nephew.

The war had destroyed too much. Teagan knew that as he got on his motorcycle and drove through the countryside that stood cratered and dead. There weren't even bugs on the ground. It had once been filled with farms and people, of lush green valleys and fields of crops.

There was nothing left now, nothing to save and so much damage to fix before they could start over. He picked up the speed, the dust cloud around him growing as he did. What a shame that it would be the only thing that grew in that lonely stretch of the bannorn where the village of Lothering had once stood.

#####

The palace was never quiet these days, though Anora wasn't quite sure what she would do if it were to fall completely silent. She didn't dislike the noise, but sometimes she wished for more peace. Perhaps her father was right and it was something that had to fought for and guarded at all times, but then again Cailan had always proclaimed that peace came from within and to find it in herself as queen. It was likely that the both of them were correct, in their own way.

She missed them both.

It was odd being without either of them, because her life has so long been defined by first father, then husband. Now she was simply Anora, Queen of Ferelden with all that it entailed. The people of her recently ravaged nation are understandably wary of the future, but she didn't take it personally. The past year had seen more upheaval than the past thirty.

They've all been through quite an ordeal. Though she was grateful for all the help that came from various factions, things could have turned out much differently. Better in some ways, worse in others. But it was what it was, and she had a future to attend to - her nation's future.

Her courtiers awaited her, and she needed to inspire confidence in them. It was time for her to make the addresses, give the inspiring televised speeches, and touch the hands of her people. It was time for her to don her jeans and flannel and go out and work next to a southern farmer for a day, talk to their family and make sure the press saw it all, showing her as compassionate and understanding and most of all, unafraid of hard work. She was definitely all of those things, but she remained a politician as well. It was once Cailan's face that was more important, and hers just a side note, but now there was no other. They needed to see her. Her Ferelden needed its queen.

Her court demanded it of her. Already she could hear the voices of the loudest detractors in her mind, accusing and looking down at her. Most of the nobility were willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, to let whatever crimes her father may have perpetrated be absolved by his death. But so many people liked to hold onto grudges even against those whom they'd once called 'hero'. The Guerrin family especially, but she couldn't blame them, not after Arl Eamon had been poisoned. The mage involved said he had orders from her father, but she didn't trust the word of a blood mage. Objectively, she knew it was unfair to push so much of the blame onto Arl Howe, and yet she found that she must, in order to be able to go on.

Without the support of Arl Eamon and Bann Teagan, rebuilding would be even harder. Eamon was content to rest and work on his own lands, only coming to Denerim when he couldn't avoid it. It was just as well, because Anora felt guilty every time she saw him, greyer and paler than he'd been before, clutching a metal cane at end of the day, because he was weak from his time abed. Teagan however, he was another story. He came so often she was sure his staff didn't leave Denerim, only the man himself crossing Ferelden back and forth, covering the distance between his bannorn and the capital in record time. Once upon a time she'd liked that about him, his willingness to drop everything and come to aid her and Cailan, the advice he could dispense over the phone at all hours of the day and night. Now she wasn't sure how she felt about the ever-present Teagan, angry and resentful and always breathing down her neck.

He wasn't her uncle, and she was a sovereign. She did not have to please him with her decisions. She was Queen. Sole ruler of Ferelden.

It seemed like whenever she saw Teagan these days, she had to remind herself of that. He had been Cailan's uncle, and the privilege no longer extended to her. The avuncular patter he'd previously employed with her no longer worked, though she didn't bother to think about why.

It had to be this way.

So she ignored him as often as she could get away with, even now as he revved up to her palace on a motorcycle so loud that it did the announcing for him. Anora's phone chirped in her hand, startling her. She looked down at it with feeling annoyed, but it never showed on her face. Had there been anyone in the room, they would only have seen the serene queen answering an unexpected interruption to her solitude. The screen announced that her assistant Erlina requested an audience. She flicked the button on the screen and typed in a hasty affirmative reply. It was better than thinking about the other conversations she would have that day.

#####  
I've given up on you

Even in this modern age, Anora favored tradition. She found solace in it, and the trappings of the past held special meanings for her. It wasn't so long ago that Ferelden was occupied, and before that divided. Using the old symbols, the way of dress and the old crowns gave her people a feeling of continuity that buoyed them through rough times.

She wanted to find purpose in something bigger than herself, but for herself, if that made any sense. When the curtain came down she wasn't queen in private, just as she hadn't been when Cailan was alive. They'd been people, with all the foibles and folly that came with it. Despite their obvious problems, their relationship had been about more than just ruling and responsibility. She missed those times. She wanted to be free to be herself again, but when she looked around the chamber for people that truly knew her, there was no one looking back to see Anora, just Queen Anora. So she remained strong for all of them, traditional, graceful and full of confidence.

The Queen of Ferelden had unwavering faith in the recovery of her nation and the ability of time to heal the hearts of its people. She had plans to bring more technology and innovation to the land, to use the destruction left in the wake of the Blight to build something new, a great society that was vibrant and energetic, but still had roots. Those were the things she knew that could come with time and careful planning, the things she could do.

But Anora the woman had personally lost as much as anyone else in the nation. A husband, a father, and almost her own life. She was lucky that the Wardens hadn't sought more power than they already gained. For herself, she wanted to wear black for her husband and brother, go through the traditions of mourning and give her soul time to mend itself. There had to be little jokes that reminded her how to smile despite her pain, how to put one foot out of the bed and follow it with the other on the days when she wanted to nothing but to let the black oblivion of sleep swallow her whole. She wanted to pray at the Chantry without being scrutinized, without some reporter following her as she clasped her hands and mourned a father that the world said she should not, and a husband that she missed far more than she'd ever expected.

None of her life was private, and every decision was up for public debate. Like the one that headlined the newspapers that day, paper and virtual editions.

**QUEEN OF A BYGONE AGE**

The headline was complete with a picture of her in traditional dress and crown, with scepter, of all things. She only used that in knighting ceremonies, but here was the picture, on the front page as if were taken yesterday. What it didn't show was Cailan sitting next to her on the throne. What had been removed was her father standing behind her on the dais as he so often had. That would date it, instead of making it seem as though she normally held court alone, in an outdated dress trying to restore days gone by.

Anora had seethed at first, but then decided to turn her rage into something useful. There was always a use for strong emotion, to diffuse it, to hide it until it was beneficial to show such passion.

Passion. The word echoed in her head, bringing with it unwanted thoughts. She remembered her comfortable life before the Blight, where she would have said her passion lay in protecting Ferelden. Funny how she'd inherited her father's passion in that regard. Cailan had loved music, studied it above all else except governance, played several instruments and sang well. He wrote songs...she'd almost forgotten about that. Despite knowing what her deceased family loved, she didn't know her own heart. While she still felt strongly for Ferelden's independence and safety, it wasn't a true passion. Music pleased her, but she had no desire to make it aside from singing out the occasional song.

At her desk, she squeezed her eyes shut, willing a passion or even something that wasn't a responsibility or duty to come forward in her mind. She liked gardening, debating and history. None of those could be considered a passion, but held great meaning in her life. No when she thought of passion, Anora's mind brought forth the image of her courtiers arguing with her, the feeling she got when her crown was placed on her head and the dark, angry eyes of Teagan Guerrin. He had passion, though often hid or deflected it so as to seem innocuous. He'd told her once to leave the past behind and prepare for the inevitable future. She'd scoffed at his advice at the time, but it stayed with her.

He'd followed her to her study the day before, and they'd argued enough to alarm the guards outside her door. She sent them away, and the two of them reignited their heated debate, first in fierce whispers and then in lowered voices. It still escalated once more, until she and Teagan were hurling their thoughts and points at each other as if they were strategically fired bullets, quick and aimed to wound. Eventually they yelled each other to a stand still, and he'd slumped down in his chair, rubbing circles over his temples. It surprised her that the simple gesture made her want to place a kiss to the small area each fingertip rubbed. Anora abandoned the thought as his tired voice spoke up.

"We need to do more than just rebuild Denerim, Your Highness." He'd said, almost defeated.

Anora gave him her most charming grin. "So we've discussed. Things will, in time, progress. There's more to do than just saving the abandoned stretches of the bannorn, Teagan."

He shook his head at her and then begged his leave. She granted it with a airy wave of her hand. Then she'd sat in her office practicing her deep breathing until she could regain herself enough to function. He thought it was easy, that she was deliberately missing places to punish those that had called for her to step down after the Blight. It wasn't so. There wasn't enough of anything, people, resources, money, mages able to help, scientists that would work with the mages, warriors capable of facing down the stragglers of the darkspawn. All of those thing and more had to be considered, but Teagan made her feel like an absentee landlord for not pushing forward recklessly trying to give the appearance of saving the whole of Ferelden at once.

Just recalling the memories made her frustration renew itself. Her eyes opened and she saw the screen was still on the headline proclaiming her to be out of touch. She would not simply sit and stew, letting impotent rage consume her until it made her sick. She needed a distraction. A second later, she punched a button on the phone on her desk.

"Erlina, I am going to walk the gardens if anyone needs me." She said. Once she'd decided on her arbitrary course, she was seized by a desire to in fact sit in her rose garden until she could collect herself.

"As you say, Your Highness." Erlina's voice crackled over the speaker. "The Noisette roses are particularly lovely right now."

Anora smiled, despite all the heated feeling warring within her. She didn't reply but cut the intercom off and strode from the room.

#####

Teagan was fuming, and yet could say nothing more than he'd already done. Hours after his audience with Anora, he was alone and still quite angry. His staff gave him a wide berth as he paced his own study, with orders not to be disturbed.

The Blight was over, and there was no need for Anora to be so lax in her duties. If she were half the administrator she thought she was, then the country would be well on its way to recovery. Teagan fumed thinking on the fallow fields of Rainesfere and the blighted lands between his home and Denerim. This was the time to support the bannorn and increase farming where it still could be managed, to make Ferelden better at being self-sufficient, but she did nothing for agriculture.

The Queen did nothing for the country folk, focusing all of her attention on the capital and the other, large port cities. Gwaren had barely been touched by the Blight and civil war, but received a healthy dose of money and resources to restructure. Highever was already rich and prosperous, and had a steady hand ruling it in Fergus Cousland, but Anora funneled more money that way, both the the teynir and the city. Redcliffe in comparison, had gotten little. Mostly aid in the way of resources, not money, and certainly not aid in repairing the land around the arling that so desperately needed help.

They were weak on their western border. He feared they would be consumed by Orlais, or worse by some unknown that saw them as vulnerable and ripe for the conquest. He'd tried to explain this to Anora, but she'd simply given him that infuriatingly inscrutable smile and told him that she had it under control.

Didn't she care? He'd put the question to her in private and Anora had the audacity to laugh at his concerns. It had been a hard chuckle, the grim laughter that sounded cynical and desperate, but he knew the queen was neither of those things. That laugh though - it wasn't like her, but then again he didn't fool himself that he knew her anymore.

The desk phone rang, the electronic jangles pulling him from his own thoughts at once. He went around to answer it.

"Bann Teagan speaking" he stated into the receiver, as though most of his calls weren't routed to him.

"Bann Teagan, great, just the fellow I was looking for." The unfamiliar male voice on the other end of the line said. "Do you have a minute to answer a few questions for the Denerim Daily News? Can you tell me if the Queen is isolating herself?"

Teagan's ire was too great and this was one more annoyance on top of too many others. "No comment." Teagan replied and hung up the phone.

The reporter was sure to mention that to the next person he called, gaining enough sympathy to get a quote for his story at last.

#####  
Staring at the sky

He'd been so foolish to paint himself as Anora's enemy. Now the press had wind of it and Teagan was the big bad wolf. Normally, he wouldn't care - the favor of the press was always cyclical, that was the way it worked - but this time it bothered him. Maybe because he saw his part in it too clearly, once the lens was focused by someone else.

His own worries kept him up late and woke him before dawn. This day, he couldn't bare to rise early, even though he could hear the traffic from his window, the change of the sounds from sleepy early morning to full on. Teagan sat in bed, coffee brought to him by a maid, his laptop open in front of him. There she was, on the front of the paper again. But this time, Anora looked different. It wasn't a picture of the queen, but of a young woman dressed in head to toe black as she exited the Chantry.

**TOO MUCH GRIEF FOR THE QUEEN?**

The article laid it on thick, sympathy for the bereaved monarch, the beautiful young widow. She was portrayed as hard-working, quick minded and utterly alone in her ivory tower. An unnamed source close to the queen had spoke of her praying regularly, visiting her flower garden for solitude after arguing with her court. He was one of the detractors that pushed her to the brink, or so declared the article. Was he? He couldn't tell - he'd just wanted to do right for his people, for the land he rode over that had once been full of life but now lay dead. There had been demands and plenty of outrage, but few solutions. An overwhelming need to make things right rung within him, but Teagan realized he didn't know how to do that anymore, especially not where Anora was concerned.

He had forgotten, in his grief and haste to lay blame, that Anora was a person. A woman, who still glittered behind her tired smile. A person that had lost far more then he, suffered too much in a very short time. Was it too much grief for her? Too much to find herself alone and opposed by so many, with so much to try to repair? No task so great had ever been set upon Cailan, and Teagan knew if it had he would have been offering more support instead of endless criticism.

Teagan wasn't sure what it was about the scene that reminded him, but it hit home with a pang in the chest. She wasn't even doing anything special, not really. Anora was sitting at a tavern with her golden hair loose, talking to a woman with a child on her hip. She'd laughed, louder than he'd heard in a such a long time, and Teagan remembered.

He remembered Anora as a child, who laughed so loud and long that she gave herself hiccups more often than not. He remembered Anora as a young woman, always proper and pretty as a daisy, but quick to smile and quicker with her wit. Then there was Anora the young bride, who had blushed prettily not five years before all of this mess started, and gave a wide, genuine smile to Cailan the moment she saw him standing at the altar. The event had been televised, and much had been made of her smile and his answering grin, but Teagan remembered it as it was - two happy young people. They may not have been madly in love, but they loved each other and it showed. Anora never disappointed, but had lost her laugh these days. He couldn't remember when he'd last heard it.

And there was Loghain, his erstwhile friend and mentor. Anora had no responsibility for the heinous actions taken by her father, but it was so hard to separate the two. He knew they'd grown apart as she fully took on her role as queen, but in his mind it was hard to reconcile it. He always remembered them together, father and daughter, heads bowed towards one another, thick as thieves. He supposed it had been like that until she'd ascended, and he no longer could ignore her status with fatherly privilege. His desperate acts had been such a betrayal, the situation made a morass of Teagan's feelings.

It was time he took a harder look at what he was demanding, what he wanted and how it could be done. There was a time for revenge, but it had passed with the Blight. They had to work towards a solution, or Ferelden would be forever sundered.

He would take roses to Loghain's monument, and mourn the friend he lost on the field at Ostagar. Then he'd apologize to Anora, and hope that he might hear her golden laugh for the first time in more than two years.

#####

She always felt like she had to mentally prepare herself for Teagan's visits, both dreading and looking forward to them. He inevitably sought her out in private, and there was no way she could possibly avoid him. Just once, just once Anora wished that instead of talking, he might take her for a ride on his motorcycle again, as he'd done before she'd gotten married and too busy for it.

For this visit, he was fulfilling both his role as Bann and another as ambassador. He would be liaising with lords from the Free Marches in her name, and she'd hoped she could count on him to be diplomatic. Before he'd come to her study, she'd been optimistic. Now, not so much after hearing his strange, stammering apology for his unmasked resentment the past two years.

"Am I supposed to simply accept that apology and smooth things over between us?" Anora asked without rancor. She was entirely serious, and quite unsure what Teagan meant by the stumbling apology he'd just tried to give.

At best the words he'd just uttered could be construed as well-intentioned but ham-fisted. At worst, he'd decided her vacuous and prone to flattery, not to mention forgetful of the past.

"I simply meant, Anora, that we were once friendly, if not friends. I had forgotten that, let the crimes of your father come between us." Teagan said.

Anora considered the statement, though her hackles raised at the mention of her 'father's crimes'. When she did speak, it was carefully. "I accept the spirit of your apology, but take issue with the wording of it."

When Teagan didn't respond more than to cross his arms over his broad chest, she spoke up again. "While my father did many things wrong, and made some questionable decisions, I want you to consider something. You knew who my father was, what he did in his life. You were friends with him, admired him. When did that stop?" She didn't wait for him to answer. "When it was your family that he considered a danger. Not before then. Then you were eagerly cataloging the crimes he committed against you. When it was you that benefitted from his zealousness about defending Ferelden, then you had no problems with him. Now you vilify him along with the others, casually forgetting all that came before."

She was angry, so angry, about everything that had fallen apart after the Battle of Ostagar. Too many people thought like Teagan and precious few ever tried to apologize for it. Opinions would mellow with years, but she would have liked to ban them outright, if she'd had the heart of a tyrant. It weighed so heavily on her, and she knew it would for all time.

Teagan was red in the face, and took a moment to respond. When he did, it was in a voice of measured calm. "I cannot claim to understand your position, but I see your point. We cannot simply dismiss your father's deeds, for good or ill. What I meant was that it was unfair that I made you responsible for them. I blamed you for all that I saw wrong in Ferelden, whether it came from the Blight or the war and I apologize. It wasn't fair."

She gave a short laugh at that, her temper dying down. "No, but not much really is fair." She sighed, looking out of a window instead of at Teagan.

"Thank you for your apology, Bann Teagan. I appreciate what it will mean in the days to come, as we continue rebuilding together." She was formal and tried to be kind, but she saw Teagan's face fall as she said the words.

"I want to help." Teagan said softly. "I want to be your friend. I think we were once before, and I'd like to be again."

"I wish I could believe that." Anora replied stiffly. She was ready to leave it at that, to let them part with the familiar harshness between them when Teagan reached out with his hand and touched her cheek. It was so light, just the graze of his thumb against the side of her face, but it was enough.

She just wasn't sure what the significance of it was.

#####  
Soft has never felt so hard

She wanted to believe in him, in herself, in something once again. Anora needed hope, just as her people did, but she needed in a quiet, desperate way that couldn't be filled with pretty speeches about the future and duty. She tried to fill herself with purpose, but sometimes inspiration had to come from outside.

There were walks out with the people, and once a very memorable trip to a tavern. Anora reached out, touched the hands of her people and still found herself coming up empty. Meditation and yoga did little to help, and she sought solace at the Chantry, only to find her mind wandering to why the benches were so hard. At night, sleep eluded her and her mind always went back to her last fight with Teagan. His annoying presence had become all she counted on these days. If she were wrong, he would correct her, argue with her, make her see the other point of view. He was never awed or afraid of her - she was always Anora to him.

In the morning, she had Erlina call him. He was in the Free Marches, working on brokering new aid agreements on her behalf. He would see her in a few days, when his flight brought him back to Denerim.

When he came to her, she was sitting in her office, a television with constant new updates muted behind her glass desk. The noise was too much that day, but she didn't like the feeling that she might miss something. It stayed on, though she never turned to look at it, her focus instead on a map she had taped to the top of her desk. It was a habit forged by her father, an insistence on printed maps to aid visualization. She still did it when she needed perspective as she planned. Anora read reports and marked off land that was recovering from the blight with green dots, those that had been unaffected in blue and those still blighted in red. There were far too few green dots for her liking. Teagan was announced and entered in his familiar riding leathers, still carrying his helmet.

"I am pleased to report that all went well, Queen Anora." He said, but she stood up. It was now or never, at least in her mind. There was a theory to test. It sounded a lot less absurd to herself if she put it that way.

She kissed him, lightly but insistently. Her lips were firm against his, but Teagan didn't press her further. The return kiss was polite, but not really interested in going further. There was a heat to it, a passion, but it was held in check.

When she pulled away, she smiled sadly at him. "I had hoped after all that arguing, there might be some passion between us."

Teagan gave her a warm grin, "I wasn't sure if it would be welcome."

"I did kiss you, Teagan." Anora said, hiding her embarrassment with a little laugh. "I'm afraid I have no practice in courtship, so maybe I wasn't clear enough."

"It is no fault of your own. You're as beautiful as ever, and I am a lucky man to receive such a kiss. It was unexpected." He took a breath and gave Anora a sheepish smile "Shall we try again?"

But she couldn't speak an answer, just took Teagan's hand in hers. It was another moment before he leaned forward and kissed her, and Anora closed her eyes. This kiss was what she'd been hoping for, slow and winding, full of potential and interest as it went on. It had been a long time since she'd been kissed in such a manner, and she'd forgotten what it was like. The feeling of him pressed against her, his lips on hers, chest making a broad wall against her body, it nearly took her breath away.

She was glad that it was with Teagan. He was important to her. When they broke apart, she laid her head on his chest for a moment, before looking up at him. "I thought we had more to discuss than just...this."

Teagan smiled at her, and nodded. "I have an agreement from Ostwick, in the Free Marches. They took a great many refugees in, and if we agree to make arrangements to retrieve some of our displaced citizenry, they would be willing to increase the amount of aid they send."

"Also, I've come up with a few ideas about how to help the Blighted areas in the Bannorn get back in shape, perhaps a little quicker than if we just let nature fix it. And I bring a plan from my brother about a raising a soldier training outpost near Redcliffe. It should help with our low enlisted numbers since the Civil War."

She smiled at him. "You have been busy, haven't you? I am glad this didn't end up another endless argument."

"As am I." Teagan said. He was still holding her hand, his thumb grazing over her knuckles absently. His cheeks still bore a trace of the scarlet flush from their kiss, but she was sure hers did as well.

Anora sat back down and motioned for him to do the same. They had business to discuss, a country to rebuilt and a relationship to repair. She would have to get used to this new twist in their relationship, but this was a good start. There had been too much fighting in her life already.

"The Arling of Amaranthine is close to the refugees in Ostwick and needs all the help they can get. It can be arranged quickly." She said, thinking aloud. Anora smiled at him across the desk. "Let's get our people back and save this country."

Teagan nodded in agreement. "As you say, Your Majesty."


End file.
